Books – Detail

Click on a genre link to see the matching books; click again to return to the full Athenaeum Bookshelf. Please click Guidebooks, Youth or Graphic Works Collection to see the Find Library catalog listings for these categories.

The Black Wolf
Louise Penny

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf. But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning.

375 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Clark and Division
Naomi Hirahara

Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life.

Sequel: Evergreen 

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - January 2026

305 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Crimson Thaw
Bruce Robert Coffin 361 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

End Game
Jeffrey Archer

London, 2012. The eyes of the world are on Britain as the country prepares to host the Olympic Games. But the glare of the spotlight makes London a target for some of the most dangerous people on earth. And the moment the bid is won, an international conspiracy is set in motion to unleash a devastating attack that will leave the world in chaos. One man stands between triumph and disaster--Commander William Warwick, heading up Scotland Yard's elite team.

371 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Exit Strategy
Lee Child and Andrew Child

First--a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing around. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can't deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There's no problem. Nothing is missing. Second--a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climates. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help. Third--wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy's technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more ...

304 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Gallery Assistant: A Novel
Kate Belli

November 2001: Chloe Harlow wakes up late, with hazy memories of the party the night before but no recollection of how she got back to her Brooklyn apartment. Ever since the terrifying and catastrophic terrorist attack, it seems she has been on a collision course with destruction. When she finally arrives at the exclusive Upper East Side art gallery where she works, she is immediately called into her boss's office. A pair of NYPD detectives greet her, also very curious to know how her evening ended ... because the host of the party, a rising painter and the gallery's newest artist, is dead.

280 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Gravedigger's Almanac: A Novel
Oliver Pötzsch ; translated from the German by Lisa Reinhardt

Vienna, 1893. A gravedigger at the city's famous Central Cemetery, Augustin Rothmayer is a highly educated oddball who finds solace among the dead and in drafting the manuscript of the first almanac of his profession. But his fragile peace is disturbed when young inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt, an ambitious transfer from Graz, arrives in desperate need of an expert in death. And no one knows the subject better than Augustin Rothmayer. A superstitious killer is on the loose.

398 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

Guilty by Definition
Susie Dent

When an anonymous letter is delivered to the Clarendon English Dictionary, it puzzles the team of lexicographers working there. It soon becomes clear that this is not the usual eccentric enquiry. The letter hints at secrets, lies, and a particular year. For Martha Thornhill, the new Senior Editor, the date can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant, beautiful older sister Charlie went missing.

385 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Hidden in memories /
Viveca Sten ; translated by Marlaine Delargy

On Easter weekend, a guest at a luxury ski lodge in Åre is stabbed to death in her plush suite. She's Charlotte Wretlind, a property developer who planned to restore a nearby mountain hotel to its long-gone glory days. It was not a random attack. It was an act of pure aggression leveled against a woman with plenty of enemies. As the murder spreads panic among tourists and Åre residents alike, Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog face a shady staff, a dogged press, and multiple suspects.

First in the series: Hidden in Snow

466 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Impossible Fortune
Richard Osman

A Thursday Murder Club Mystery

Series starter: The Thursday Murder Club

368 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Intruder
Freida McFadden

As a hurricane rages outside her remote cabin, Casey discovers a blood-covered girl hiding near her kitchen. The girl refuses to speak or drop her knife, and as the storm worsens, Casey uncovers a chilling secret. With danger mounting, Casey must unravel the truth--before the girl silences her for good.

276 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Killing Stones
Ann Cleeves

It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland,with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children.

362 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Last Death of the Year: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Sophie Hannah

On New Year's Eve, 1932, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool travel to the Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with a small group of residents living in a crumbling house. During a game of New Year's resolutions, one guest writes a disturbing message predicting a death before the year's end.

274 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Mirage City
Lev AC Rosen

Lev AC Rosen delivers a new and captivating 1950s mystery in this dazzling, award-winning series. Private Investigator Evander 'Andy' Mills' next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco -- and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.

First in the series: Lavender House

260 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

A Murder in Paris: A Novel
Matthew Blake

An expert in memory must uncover the truth about her family's wartime past in this dazzling psychological thriller from the #1 international bestselling author of Anna O. Olivia Finn is a memory expert at Charing Cross Hospital in London. One night, she receives an urgent call from the police at the Hotel Lutetia on Paris's famous Left Bank. Olivia's French grandmother, Josephine Benoit, has appeared at the Lutetia in a distressed state claiming she once committed a murder in the hotel at the end of the Second World War. Traveling to Paris, Olivia finds her grandmother confused. But Josephine insists it is a recovered memory from the past. More disturbingly, hotel records show that a woman did die in that room of the Lutetia in 1945. Could her story really be true?

354 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Murder on a Winter's Night: Ten Classic Crime Stories for Christmas
edited by Cecily Gayford

The halls are decked, the mistletoe hung, snow falling gently outside the window - and in the shadows, evil waits for darkness to fall. So draw up a chair, throw another log on the fire, and allow ten of history's greatest crime writers to surprise, delight and chill you to the bone with classic winter mysteries full of twists, turns, and treachery.

198 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

Murder on the Marlow Belle: A Novel
Robert Thorogood

Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn't come home last night, so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow's resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had rented The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, to host an exclusive party for the society, but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And when Oliver's body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in him, it's time for the Marlow Murder Club to leap into action.

Want to start at the beginning of the series? Look for The Marlow Murder Club

256 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

Murder Under the Christmas Tree: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season
edited by Cecily Gayford

Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season

278 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer
Ragnar Jónasson ; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her-a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge-he realizes that Elín's life wasn't what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote. As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.

313 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Persian: A Novel
David McCloskey

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he's recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman's direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency.

390 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Proving Ground
Michael Connelly

Following his "resurrection walk" and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty. Representing the victim's family, Mickey's case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails.

387 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Revenge of Odessa
Frederick Forsyth with Tony Kent

Fifty years after revealing the secrets of Odessa, an underground organization of former Nazis angling to regain power, Peter Miller is a retired legend in the journalism community. He's spent the last decade caring for his grandson Georg after the death of his son and daughter-in-law in a tragic car accident. Always suspecting that his own long list of enemies might have been behind his son's death, Peter pulled back from his career to keep Georg safe. But he could do nothing to stop the young man from following in his footsteps--Georg's reputation and renown for fearless journalism growing fast in a digital world. But Georg Miller is not the only aspect of Peter's past that has thrived.

First in the series: The Odessa File

439 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Secret of Secrets: A Novel
Dan Brown

Robert Langdon, esteemed professor of symbology, travels to Prague to attend a groundbreaking lecture by Katherine Solomon--a prominent noetic scientist with whom he has recently begun a relationship. Katherine is on the verge of publishing an explosive book that contains startling discoveries about the nature of human consciousness and threatens to disrupt centuries of established belief. But a brutal murder catapults the trip into chaos, and Katherine suddenly disappears along with her manuscript. Langdon finds himself targeted by a powerful organization and hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague's most ancient mythology.

675 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Silent Bones
Val McDermid

The thrilling latest in "queen of crime" (CrimeReads) Val McDermid's masterful detective series, Silent Bones finds DCI Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway--but was it his work or his private life that put him there?

First in the series: The Distant Echo 

436 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Tokyo Express: A Novel
Seichō Matsumoto ; translated by Jesse Kirkwood

In a rocky cove at Hakata Bay, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Standing on the cold beach, the police see nothing to investigate: The flush of the couple's cheeks and the empty juice bottle speak clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, senior detective Torigai Jutaro and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime.

155 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Tourists
Christopher Reich

From the New York Times bestselling author of Matterhorn comes a heart-stopping thriller about a man who returns to a life of espionage to save the woman he loves and the City of Light.

333 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Under the Cold Bright Lights
Garry Disher

The young detectives think Alan Auhl is washed up, but that doesn't faze him. He does things his own way--and gets results. He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he's still a cop, even though he retired from Homicide some years ago. He works cold cases now.

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - February 2026

299 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Venetian Vespers
John Banville

Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri--the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo--a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2025

301 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Widow
John Grisham

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it. Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn't commit: murder. Simon knows he's innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer...

404 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

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